The hard soft ballistic armor relates generally to reduction and prevention of injuries inflicted upon persons, such as ground personnel, from improvised explosive device, or “IED,” and anti-personnel mine blast events. The hard soft ballistic armor more specifically relates to the shaping of armor panels over partially round parts of a person's body. A person, military or civilian, can readily wear the invention as it fits upon chest, elbow, ankle, and the like.
Before the Battle of Poitiers, 1356 AD, the military and its feudal lords developed plate armor. Armorers became skilled metalsmiths as they fashioned plates of iron into steel. Armorers built fires to high temperature and produced many coals. With the coals still warm, the armorers would bury the plates of iron with the coals in chambers in the ground. The armorers then returned to the chambers after a time and unearthed the plates. This application of carbon through coals into the plates of iron formed the plates into steel. The armorers then assembled the plates of various shapes upon leather straps into a suit of armor. The suit of armor had plates adapted to the contours of each knight or other wearer of armor. Suits of armor became as custom fit as tailored clothes. Knights, and other armor wearers, had to move their limbs so the suits were fitted with joints and various sliding plates. The joints though provided a point of weakness, a chink if you will in the armor. As noted by members of a band of yeomen, even a child can be taught to find those chinks and send an arrow to them.
Not to long after the Battle of Poiters, gunpowder arrived on European battlefields, thus hastening the demise of armored knights and metal armor in general. However, personal armor has staged a comeback in recent years but in different form.
From before the Revolutionary War, the military developed mines and used explosives. Mines began as containers of gunpowder concealed upon a battlefield and triggered by release of various mechanical actuators like trip wires. Military explosives started as full gunpowder containers triggered with fuses or rifle rounds. From those beginnings in this country mines and military explosives have evolved, proliferated, and developed in other countries. Present day mines serve two purposes: anti-tank and anti-personnel, abbreviated as AT mines and AP mines respectively. AT mines may include warheads so that the AT mine can disable an armored vehicle. AP mines generally have less explosive than AT mines. AP mines generally remain small in size, readily carried, quickly concealed, and designed to maim the limbs of a soldier. Such limbs include the chest, the arms, and the leg with its femur bone in the upper leg and the fibula and tibia bones in the lower leg. AP mines come in various shapes and sizes ranging from toe-poppers up to leg severing devices. Along with mines, the fire from small arms remains prevalent upon modern battlefields.
In the last decade, military action in Iraq and Afghanistan has seen the rise of improvised explosive devices, or IED by the enemy. These devices generally have a home made construction of explosives and placement in atypical locations such as in walls three feet above the ground, in peasant carts, on persons, in cargo, and the like. IED have posed an asymmetric threat to US and allied forces and civilians in the Iraqi and Afghani theatres of operations.
To mitigate the IED threat, military forces have increased their force protection efforts. These efforts have placed more personal armor upon ground personnel, or soldiers, even for routine tasks, such as mail delivery, than in prior military conflicts. The armor includes various vests such as flak vest and bulletproof vest, leggings, shin guards, and chest plates to name a view. Widening of deployment for the Explosive Ordnance Disposal, or EOD, blast suit has also occurred to additional personnel. The efforts have also adjusted tactics and procedures for movement of combat and non-combat soldiers across terrain, in rural areas, and in urban areas. However, the enemy has recognized this and adapted the IED to more potent models and placement at chest height in uncommon locations such as partly up a wall from a walking surface. The US has also responded with greater usage of EOD blast suits and flak vests. The blast suits and flak vests generally include flat panels of armor within a Kevlar outer layer. The panels have their dimensions and thus joints appear between panels.
Though this application mentions military and soldier, the Applicant utilizes those terms in a broad sense to represent all military services, their personnel, and to include select heavy civilian applications such as mining and quarrying that involve blasting.